In to the unknown

Opening the curtains of my motel room in El Paso I could see across in to my next country that I would call home for the next month or so, that country would be Mexico. Like I had said in my last blog I wasn’t attending to visit this country on this trip but after the fuck up in South Africa it seemed like the next logical step on this trip. I knew very little about the culture or the way of life of people in Mexico so I was a little hesitant to go there, especially with all the warnings how dangerous this country can be. I should know not to listen to people, sure this place can be dangerous but so can Colchester. Lets face it if you use your head you will be fine, saying that whatever country you go to, border towns always bring out the scumbags. And the El Paso/ Juarez boarder is no different there.

Looking out of the window I swear we could be in the arctic as a snow storm had just hit. Snow? in Mexico? Hang on, isn’t the north of Mexico one big desert? Packing my bags, Matty, Kealy and I headed down the road fighting the snow to reach the boarder. Matty and Kealy were not prepared for snow so they didn’t even bring a coat. Guys, hadn’t Ray Mears taught you anything? Expect the unexpected!

That’s my coat and hat Matty is wearing

Trying to find out information about how to cross the border was proving to be a nightmare. It breaks down like this, to cross the border for more than 72 hours in the 25 mile restricted area you don’t need a Tourist Visa. If you cross over in to ‘real’ Mexico you need one. Easy? well not really. Trying to find somewhere that had this bloody piece of paper was proving problematic, so with some help from a local scumbag who walked us to the immigration office I managed to get a 180 day tourist VISA which was so good and meant i didn’t have to worry about rushing through the country like I had to in China. Sometimes have that British passport really does help. GOD SAVE THE QUEEN and all that crap.

We all Walked back to the boarder so I could see Matty and Kealy off as they were going back to the USA (That sounds funny as we had only been in Mexico about 1 hour) to continue there journey through Texas. It was sad to see them go as I must say the short time I spent road tripping with them was so much fun.
Heading off to the bus station the local scumbag insisted he was coming with me. Even when I said no he hopped in to the taxi to make sure that I got on the right bus. How much did this little bit of escorting me cost? $15!!!! He wanted more but there was noway I was handing more over. He said his time was precious and that as he spent ‘half a day with me’…… hang on half a day spent with Random Sam? It was more like 25 minutes! He demanded more because now his wife and kids had suddenly got sick and as he was a religious man that meant i should give him $50. I told him to piss off and gave him the last of my American change that was about 50 cents. See that’s why i hate border towns, everyone is out to make a quick buck. Anyway that was my first impressions of Mexico. Snowy, dirty, shit food and full of Scumbags…… that impression didn’t last even 6 hours when I made it to my first destination, Chihuahua.
A couple of things happened on the bus worth noting down. The first is the buses will play movies in Spanish for the long trip, I started trying to watch it as it had English subtitles on it. I came in half way though and thought it was some really dodge Mexican film about the Mayan civilisation. The effects were so bad and laughable, I’m talking they looked so cheap it made the Eastenders set look real. Well, it turned out this low budget movie was in fact the high budget Mel Gibson film ‘Apocalypto’. Has anyone else seen this rubbish?
The other thing worth noting about long distance bus rides is GO TO THE TOILET before you get on. This wouldn’t be a problem as the buses have toilets on them but being Random Sam something was bound to happen. So waking up from a little sleep I was bursting to go to the loo. Seeing that we were on a straight road i get up and walk to the back of the bus passing a couple of Mexicans and go in to the little toilet. Once inside I noticed the lock was a bit dodgy, it locked so I started to wee and then from out of no where the bus goes round the corner sending me flying outside the cubical still holding Mr Winky and holding my wee inside me until I could dart back in to toilet. I locked the door and again start to wee…… and again the bus goes round another corner ejecting me out again. What a nightmare! so to be on the safe side i did a ‘lady’ wee and sat down which seemed to do the trick. Ahhh that’s far better now.

So I arrive at my first real Mexican city Chihuahua, the guide book said it was really friendly but being still a little on guard i caught a taxi to a hotel in the heart of the city. My first taste of real Mexican food was from a street stall selling ‘Tacos’ with lime and Chile (god it was good, beats any ‘Tex-Mex’ food I’ve had in the States). I then headed out around the town for a quick look, not straying to far away from from my hotel as i was still on edge from Juarez. I really had nothing to worry about as the next day I headed to the only hostel in the city and was greeted by old cowboys who once they found out I wasn’t a ‘gringo’ they wished me a good stay in there city. Yes, real Mexican cowboys, Chihuahua is known for its shops selling excellent hand made cowboy boots and hats. I was going to buy some but I’m not sure how well received I would be in London if I turned up to work in a pair of lime green lizard skin cowboy boots. Still it was great fun to photograph men bargaining over the boots.

The owner of the hostel couldn’t be more helpful. After long chat about where I should go in Mexico and told me some great tips I found out he was a crazy French photographer who builds kites with cameras attached to them to make some absolutely wonderful aerial shots of Mexico. (I must try that when I get home) I spent most of the afternoon and evening hanging out with him and his wonderful family. Chihuahua is a very sleepy town and to be honest there wasn’t a great deal to see or do, but that doesn’t make it a boring town, just sitting in the main square watching the old cowboys and women in bright traditional clothes going about there day to day life’s was a real treat. Sipping on my strawberry Fanta and chilling out the whole of next day was enough to draw me in the laid back ways of Mexican life. One big thing I noticed about Mexico that afternoon was how much it reminded me of Russia, I’m not sure why but all i can think it has to do with the passion they have for the church. Walking in to the main cathedral of Chihuahua it was like I was stepping back in to the churches of St Petersburg. Also many of the small villages I passed on the bus reminded me of the days travelling on the train in Siberia. I never thought in someways that I would be back in a ‘Happier’ Russia.

The main reason I had come to Chihuahua was to board my final ‘Great Train Ride of the World’ for this trip. The Copper Canyon Express was to take me over the Copper Canyon to the Pacific coast. I’ll quickly tell you about the train, basically it makes no money at all and is the only commercial passenger train left in Mexico. There are four trains that run each day, one 1st class and one 2nd class going in both directions. The 1st class train is really for fat American tour groups who pay silly amounts of money for package deals which if you look on the web cost anywhere up to $3000 (If you buy a first class ticket at the station it will cost you $115) I know they have hotel and transport as well but still that seems like a lot of money. But still its those tourists who keep this vital service going for the small mountain communities. Without this train many people couldn’t get to there villages as its the only way to reach them as there are very few roads that have been built.

On route I was going to make one stop at the tiny mountain town of Creel for a couple of days. The next day I said goodbye to the wonderful host of the hostel and at 7am I boarded the 2nd class train. The 2nd class is the way to travel on this route if you want to see the real people of the mountains. The guards on the train branding M16 rifles were there for our protection as a few years back bandits use to target the train and rob the passengers so I was quite glade to walk in to the restaurant cart and see two of them having a siesta. It takes 6 hours to reach Creel and the train makes many stops along the way dropping passengers off in very remote villages which seem to have sprung up next to the rail track, the smell of beef tacos and BBQ chicken wafting though the train windows from the street sellers was just a heavenly smell.

Creel is a fabulous and very fascinating little village where the local indigenous people called the Tamahumara who live in caves next to the village and separate themselves from the western world…… except for wearing Nike trainers (you just can’t get away from capitalism).
Reaching Creel I’m met by a bunch of kids hawking me to stay at the only hostel in town, I don’t really agree with kids working at this age when they should be at school but I didn’t fancy staying at the Best Western with all the old people tour groups. The hostel was a great place, many travellers from all over the world travelling in both directions on the train were staying here. The best thing about it was dinner time where everyone would gather in the dining hall and eat together. It was great to find out tips and places to go in Mexico. It was also a great place to make new friends and find people to go on tours. I met a great American called Dan and a girl from Holland who were going to be my travelling buddies around the Copper Canyon for the next couple of days.

We didn’t want to pay the silly amounts for a tour so we decided to do it by ourselves and hire a car. After striking up a deal with a local tour group who offered to rent us their truck for 24 hours as long as we didn’t dent it, otherwise we would have to pay for the damages. Well when this truck pulled up it looked like it had been in a battlefield, have a look at Sam’s Love Machine.

I also found out that Dan couldn’t drive a manual so it was down to me driving in Mexico. The words SAM IS SHITTING it doesn’t even come close to how I was feeling, but everyone was happy to jump in the truck to our first destination which was the bottom of the Canyon. The Canyon itself is stunning and really looks a lot like the Grand Canyon but with many pine trees all over the top of the canyon. The road was paved for the first 80 miles or so but to get to our next view point which we got told was stunning we would have to drive on a bumpy dirt track for the next 40miles and as we found out when we returned was one of the worlds most dangerous roads. And I can say that it is very true, after a few hours cutting though the Forrest, passing small towns and villages we came to La Buffa, now La Buffa is a view point that looks over the canyon and the road which at this point is more than a 1000 meters up and is not much bigger than the truck, at one point we were so close to the edge Dan could not see the road next to him and just the bottom of the canyon. Once we made it to the view point we were greeted by a statue of the Virgin Mary who I believe is there so you can pray that you have a safe journey on your way down to the village of Batopilas. On the way back we were greeted by some heavy machinery that was repairing the road. I’ve been in some tricky and scary situations before but I have never been so scared in my life, god knows what my passengers thought about it all. My feet were shaking on the clutch and the brake and gave me far the biggest adrenal rush so far this year. Scary but brilliant. I found out a few days later a truck going down the road fell off due to the bad weather and snow taking out part of the road with it on the way down. I don’t know if anyone was killed, lets hope not.

As we still had the truck the following morning we decided to get up a 6am and head to a couple of the points of interest near Creel, the first stop was the lake next to the town a wonderful sunrise over the lake we stopped for a short while and then headed over to some waterfalls. The hike was pretty nice and there was no one around so we had the falls to ourselves. The last place I wanted to see so bad….. The Valley of the Monks or as the locals call it. The Valley of the penis. I didn’t even have to comedy cock them. They comedy cocked me, check them out. Utterly brilliant!

The afternoon was spent getting back in to street photography but I wasn’t having much luck so after a few hours of pretty rubbish shooting I headed over to the bar with a couple of travellers who were staying at the hostel. In hostels you meet some very interesting characters. I had a Korean guy staying in my dorm called Moon who was travelling the world on a push bike and that it was going to take him 6 years. Every week he writes in a national paper where he is and who he has met. Well people guess who had his photo in the Korean press last week? Yes that’s right, Random Sam is now a celebrity in Korea. I would love to get a copy of it from somewhere. He was such a nice guy and I feel bad that I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to him.

Another person who is worth mentioning from Creel was a complete space cadet. I think he had smoked to much weed in his life as some of the stuff he was telling us was brilliant. Looking a tad like Uncle Fester from the Adams Family he was telling me he was a radar operator for the navy and that he was now living off his pension travelling around Central America. Nothing odd about that you say? But then he told us that he was being chase by the FBI as he believed in March 2001 he stumbled on to the plot to destroy the Twin Towers and when he was working in a base in San Diego. He was certain that he saw the hijackers in a room with Navy Officers going through blue prints and when he was spotted he was ushered out of the building and was chased over the boarder to Mexico where he had been on the run ever since. Brilliant!
Surely if he was on the run why don’t they stop his pension? I was going to mention that to him but I thought I better keep my mouth shut.

I bought my ticket for my onward journey to the small town at the west end of the canyon called El Fuerte. I boarded the 1st class train this time as the second class gets in to late and you miss the the spectacular views on the way as the night closes in to early during the winter. I didn’t mind paying £30 as it was my last scenic train ride that I would be taking on this trip and I’m glad I did as it was worth every penny. I took a small video and some photos of the view. again like the Grand Canyon you really have to see it in real life to get the full effect.

I roll up to the small train station on the edge of town and caught a taxi, the taxi driver was so funny, driving in the pitch black dodging the cows that seem to be walking all over the road he suddenly pulled out a cool box and it was filled with ice cold beers. I started laughing and asked if he had any Tequila, for some reason this tickled him greatly as for the rest of the trip all he would do was look at me and say tequila before cracking up. I was scared that he was going to hit a cow or something. Anyway I get to the hotel called Rio Vista Lodge as there are no Hostels in town. I will say it is one of the most beautiful hotels i have been too, wild humming birds flying around my window in the morning and a great cheap restaurant attached to the hotel and for only £20. A great place to be after my last great rail journey of the world.

Next stop the Pacific coast. See you next week.